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Marine Surveyors & Yacht Surveys
by David H. Pascoe
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| Who
Are Marine Surveyors? |
No state in the U.S. licenses or otherwise regulates marine surveyors. Because of this
virtually anyone can call themselves a marine surveyor. A decade ago, there were perhaps
no more than 600 marine surveyors in the entire U.S. Since that time the number has grown
to an estimated 3000 people who call themselves surveyors.
Because of this, there are now large numbers of surveyors who have very little training or
experience. This is a situation that greatly concerns those of us who are dedicated to
true professionalism, to those of us who served apprenticeships or acquired our training
as yard managers or boat builders.
| The
National Association of Marine Surveyors |
NAMS is the oldest professional association founded in 1962. NAMS has very strict
background, qualification and testing requirements. Please call NAMS national office at
1-800-822-6267 for a reference of the nearest NAMS surveyor.
*Occasionally we receive inquiries on how to become a surveyor or a NAMS
member. Please direct your inquiry to NAMS office, if you are interested in becoming a
marine surveyor. Thank you. - Editor
The prepurchase survey is a service intened to provide the prospective boat buyer with
sufficient information as to the condition, safety and performance of a vessel, its
equipment and machinery, so to enable the buyer to make a sound purchase decisions.
The objective is to determine as much as possible about these parameters within the scope
of both the time extended and survey fee agreed upon by surveyor and client.
While there does exist something of a general standard of survey scope, obviously there
are numerous types of extended survey services such as diesel engine surveys, compression
testing, electrical systems surveys and other diagnostics that can be accomplished. It is
really a matter of how deeply a buyer wants to investigate the vessel he is planning
purchasing.
The typical survey consists of three parts: a static, in water survey, haul out for
inspection of the underbody and, a full sea trial. These three aspects of the survey need
to be conducted in a particular order, and under conditions favorable to providing the
best results. It is important that the buyer and his surveyor control the survey process,
not the seller and/or his agents.
Actually, the survey process begins the moment you start thinking about buying a boat. If
you are the sort of discriminating person who is concerned about quality, safety and the
long-term effects of your investment in a boat or yacht, one of the first things you
consider, or should consider (aside from the basic parameters of the boat you want), is:
(a) how well will the vessel hold up over time and,
(b) what will it be worth when its time to sell.
These considerations go straight to the heart of quality. The higher the quality of the
yacht, the less it will deteriorate and the greater resale value it will have. The same
holds true for the cost of maintenance and ownership.
If you’re not certain about what age or quality of vessel you should buy, then by all
means we urge you to contact a surveyor and let him share his knowledge with you. Many
boater are not aware of how rapidly the cost of ownership increases relative to a
vessel’s age. In many cases, it may cost more to own an older boat that needs a lot
of work, than it would to be making payments on a much newer one.
Our surveyors can be of great help to you in evaluatating the cost of ownership of older
vessels and help you choose a boat that is right for your needs without breaking the bank.
We assist hundreds of clients every year in cutting through the wide range of choices, and
narrowing your search thereby saving a lot of leg work, time and expense.
Presurvey Inspections are one way to save the cost of traveling to make an initial
inspection. If you’ve located a boat a long way from home territory, just call a
qualified surveyor in the area and ask him to check it out for you. He’ll be glad to
do this at a very nominal cost and be prepared to tell you whether the boat appears to be
as represented, and whether it is worth your while to go and look at it. By handling in
this manner, you are also a lot less likely to sign a contract and make a deposit on a
boat that doesn’t survey out to your expectations.
| What should you expect from a survey? |
Surveyors are not omniscient of course, and they don’t take the boat apart and
examine it piece by piece. A survey is not a warranty of the vessel. Even so, we estimate
that top notch surveyors probably find about 95% of all discoverable defects in a vessel.
The survey should provide the boat buyer with the following benefits:
- A full itemization of existing defects and substandard maintenance conditions.
- Advice on equipment or systems that are about to fail or are likely to do so.
- A full accounting of all unsafe conditions.
- Evaluate vessel performance and handling.
- It has long been our experience that the surveys we provide pay for themselves in terms
of deficiencies discovered and subsequent price negotiations. It is absolutely true that
professional marine surveys pay for themselves, often many, many times over.
- An accurate appraisal of the vessel’s fair market value
It is a very common practice among surveyors who serve other interests to provide long,
impressive-looking reports that consist of many pages describing what the vessel looks
like, what is on it, long inventories of equipment and detailed specifications, without
ever saying a word about the condition of the vessel.
This sort of thing is not a survey but a sales brochure which you, the buyer, ends up
paying for. Surveys like these are designed to sell the boat, and help you get financing
and insurance, but do little to evaluate the condition of the vessel. Please note that you
can always recognize the caliber of survey that you get by determining whether the survey
concentrates on describing condition, or if it reads like a brochure. If that’s the
sort of survey you want, then fine, but we thought that you should be aware that this is
the sort of survey you may get. Fortunately, there are other option.
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